


just take your chances

by redandgold



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Buzzfeed Unsolved, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 08:17:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14588853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redandgold/pseuds/redandgold
Summary: "What is this? TheBlair Witch Project?"





	just take your chances

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neyvenger (jjjat3am)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjjat3am/gifts).



> Dearest recip!!! I really hope that you like this - turns out it isn't as easy to translate the idea of Unsolved into actual fic as I thought it would be, BUT I TRiieeeed. I KNOW IT'S TERRIBLE I'LL OWE U OK!!! Much love <3333

Jamie hits _pause_ on his stream so hard that he's fairly certain he's broken his keyboard. Ordinarily this would have been worrying, given his inability to afford things as a general rule, but whatever – he'll sell his soul to get it fixed, there are more important things at stake.

Three seconds ago he was Jamie Carragher, purveyor of fine football collectibles in a shop with hazardous dust levels by day, consumer of J-League games and seven hour Vine compilations by night, one of the most boring people in Liverpool by all accounts. Three seconds later he's Jamie Carragher, about to be world-fucking-famous because he's just had an idea that's going to Change His Life.

"Stevie," he yells down the phone once he's actually found it, buried as it is under an inundation of the latest panini sticker albums he'd accidentally ordered and ran out of space for. "Stevie, are you watching MNF?"

The door slams open. "You don't have to _call_ me," Stevie complains, glowering at him. "I'm in the _next room_. You could just _come outside_ and watch on _telly_."

"I'm not paying exorbitant sums for something that ought to be free," Jamie says indignantly. "Football is a basic human right – "

"We are not doing this again," Stevie says, with the long-suffering look of someone who has definitely done this again. "What d'you want? I'm missing the rest of MNF."

"Look at this." Jamie gestures to his screen, where despite his abject incompetence with technology he'd at least managed to take a three second clip of Gary Neville squawking about Sunderland's defensive failures.

"Is this about your weird crush again?" Stevie asks, squinting. "Because I really don't need to hear your fantasies about his nose or whatever – "

For the record, Jamie doesn't have a crush on Gary Neville, nor does he have a thing about his nose, nor does he have a surplus of Gary Neville stickers circa 2004 that he likes to collect. But that's definitely something they aren't doing right now. "See the groundsman in the background?" he says, impatient, gesturing at the grass above Neville's shoulder. There's a groundsman walking across the grass, only halfway through he just – vanishes. Like he wasn't ever really there.

Jamie looks at Stevie like a puppy waiting to be told he's a good boy.

Stevie blinks.

"It's a computer glitch, mate."

"No, it isn't."

"Look, it's a loop, you idiot. The fade's just the loop replaying."

"No, it isn't," Jamie mutters mutinously. "Why would they fade in a loop and not just replay it? Why would they need to have a loop in the first place? It's not like the pitch will disappear past ten – "

"I have an idea," Stevie says, looking at his watch. "You go on reddit or summat and yell about this and I can go back to watching the football I've paid exorbitant sums for."

"You are a shit friend," Jamie says.

"I'm a good friend," Stevie retorts, heading out the door. "That's why I'm not arguing. What you need is someone who's even more of a smug bastard than you."

 

 

 

_XA_14: Ghosts aren’t real mate_

_KingKenny7: Yeah but what if they were?_

_XA_14: Then they would not be haunting the grounds of Sunderland, disguised as a groundsman_

_KingKenny7: Maybe they really like grass?????_

_XA_14: Are you listening to yourself?_

_MickeyO: Actually, there have been reports of ghosts at the Stadium of Light before_

_KingKenny7: YOU SEE!_

_XA_14: You are really putting all your faith in Mickey?_

_MickeyO: Hey!_

_XA_14: Mickey, you used the word 'outswarming'._

_MickeyO: So?? A word is a word??_

_KingKenny7: OKAY BUT THERE ARE STILL GHOSTS IN THE STADIUM OF LIGHT._

_XA_14: Prove it._

_KingKenny7: Prove it?_

_XA_14: Go find the ghost._

_KingKenny7: You bastard. You bet I'm going to._

_XA_14: Send him to me with a postcard._

_KingKenny7: Come w me and see them for your goddamn self_

_XA_14: Yeah?_

_KingKenny7: Yeah. Come ghost fucking hunting._

_XA_14: Only the hunting bit. Wouldn't fuck a ghost._

Jamie paces the ground outside the Stadium of Light, feeling like a trespasser. Well. Not _like._ Technically he _is_ going to trespass, ish, just as soon as X. A. Whomever-The-Fuck gets here. Jamie still doesn't quite know why he invited him along; the lad's been picking fights with him ever since he got onto Reddit, from Klopp's tactics to the point of Jordan Henderson, and Jamie supposes he just wants to get on with it face to face for once.

Anyhow, Stevie had been fully supportive of the idea. Howling with laughter till he started wheezing didn't exactly signal moral support, but Jamie knew that he meant it deep down.

"God, this is going to be fun," he'd said once he'd gotten it into his thick head that Jamie was being serious. "Take videos, will you? I'd pay good money to see you two losers get mugged off by the Sunderland Ghost."

"At least I'll have proved that they exist," Jamie shot back, full of a bravado as put on as United fans facing the world without Fergie.

And now he's here, after a four-hour train to a city no one in their right mind would visit if there wasn't football on, waiting for a bloke who might murder him just as happily as a ghost might. He doesn't even know _what_ the fella looks like, Jesus. No wonder Stevie had made him sign his last will and testament before he'd left, although its existence on the back of a spare Nandos napkin might somewhat undermine its credibility.

"I probably oughta go back," he mutters under his breath. "Stupid idea, anyway. Don't want to bloody die – "

"Excuse me," comes a polite voice from behind him, "are you here to fuck ghosts?"

Jamie turns around and thinks he might physically expire. Stood in front of him is the kind of bloke who belongs in a fashion catalogue somewhere, looking pensively into the distance as he lounges against a seventeenth-century balcony railing. Probably with a bow-tie and a dog for good measure. And a dash of sunlight for that jawline. Something. Uh.

XA_14 is looking at him with a wry smirk on his face, the kind that implies he knows how good-looking he is and that he enjoys the effect he has on people. It might be the smuggest thing Jamie's seen since Arsenal won the FA Cup for the third time in four years.

"Are you here to be a pretentious bastard?" he returns, finally getting his head back into the game. "Or are you just here to watch me wipe that bloody smirk off your face?"

The smirk only gets wider. "Xabi Alonso," he says, extending a hand. "A pleasure to disprove you in person."

His English is slightly stilted, as if he hasn't been speaking it for very long, although it's probably a mile better than anything Jamie could aspire to. Once Jamie had successfully communicated one (1) sentence to a Londoner without having to repeat himself and the whole pub had stood up and applauded.

"Jamie Carragher," he says, grudgingly taking the hand. It's – a decent grip. "What's the 14 for, then?"

"Guess," Xabi says, waggling his eyebrows. Jamie might throw up.

"Fuck off."

"Only kidding." Xabi's laugh is clear, almost childish, the way he shakes his head and grins. "Let us get this over with, then."

"A'ight. Just gotta get ready."

He unzips the black haversack at his feet and pulls out a handheld camcorder, a flask, a spirit box he'd gotten off eBay at a very good price, and two flashlights, one of which he throws to Xabi. Xabi catches it and blinks.

"What is this? The _Blair Witch Project_?"

"I'm documenting this for posterity," Jamie retorts, zipping up his bag and hoisting it over his shoulders. "If we catch a ghost we could go viral."

"Ghosts are not real," Xabi says, with a patience that Jamie had thought was only unique to Liverpool fans waiting for the next year.

"Yes they are."

"They are not."

"Yes they – "

God. He's twenty-five years old.

Scowling, Jamie whips the camcorder around and switches it on, assuming his most professional tone of voice. It makes him sound like a slightly more eloquent Alan Hansen, which is not necessarily a compliment. "This is Jamie Carragher, positioned at Sunderland's Stadium of Light as part of my ongoing investigation into the subject: are ghosts real?"

"Our," Xabi corrects, jamming his face into the camcorder's view and also, incidentally, right up against Jamie's cheek. "And they aren't."

"They are, and we are going to prove this." Jamie gestures at the stadium behind them, lit only by streetlamps that were probably stolen from Newcastle fans. "Tonight, we are going to step into the home of the Black Cats, opened in 1997 and the eighth-largest stadium in England. Why does a League One side need such a large stadium? Is not the question we are answering today."

"Savage," Xabi says, still peering over Jamie's shoulder at an uncomfortably close proximity.

"Our point of investigation begins with the mysterious disappearance of a groundsman during the broadcast of last week's MNF." Jamie clicks the camcorder off and counts to three. Xabi's looking at him with much amusement.

"You know, when you start the camcorder again it is just going to pick up from where you left off."

"So?"

"So you don't have to count to three."

"Stop telling me how to do my job."

"I am beginning to think you do not know how to do your job."

Jamie bites back something that would probably have forced the show's rating to jump to _unsuitable for younger audiences_. He switches the camcorder back on.

"Some speculate it is a mysterious spirit left over from Roker Park, while others believe that it is the ghost of an 19th century wrecker or smuggler named Spottee."

Xabi bursts out laughing.

" _Spottee,_ " he echoes, ignoring the withering look from Jamie that would have destroyed the self-confidence of any other living being. "Wow. Did you make that up yourself? Surely there were cooler names, like _Clifford the Big Red Dot_ – "

"He's a legitimate 19th century apparition," Jamie sniffs, "and he was seen by Sunderland striker Stephen Elliot back in 2005."

"Spottee, the three-hundred-year-old ghost who likes to mow grass in his spare time." Xabi grins. "I like it."

Jamie knows it's only supposed to rile him up, but he's absolutely going to count that as a victory anyway, so he grins back all smug. In life you have to take all the small wins you can. He should know; he's watched Liverpool for that long.

"Want to start?"

"Please." Xabi gestures towards the turnstiles. "Are you going to record our illegal entry too?"

"I worked it out with management," Jamie hums, waving two electronic passes. "Mate of mine."

Xabi scoffs. "What, you know the manager?"

"In a manner of speaking."

It isn't all that difficult to get into a League One club, really, especially when you used to kick Robbie Stockdale around in Sunday League. But at this point he'll just bask in the fact that Xabi Alonso for once in his life has nothing to say.

 

 

 

"Well, here we are on the pitch where we first saw the ghost groundskeeper."  

A stadium is different at night. It isn't like a European game with the floodlights on and forty thousand people in the stands; stadiums are meant to be full of people, and without them it's eerie, quiet, like it already has ghosts of its own. Jamie takes a sharp breath and looks around the grass, oddly empty, thinks about the number of players who've stepped here before, number of players who'll continue to.

Even Xabi's a little more subdued, looking around. The dark stands rise far above their heads. "It is something, no?" he says, quiet.

"Yeah."

"My father used to play." Xabi scuffs at the grass with his foot. "Sometimes I used to go watch him train in the empty stadium. But still that was different."

Jamie glances sidelong at Xabi, who's got an inscrutable kind of expression on his face. It's suddenly all too serious. He'd quite like to go back to ghost hunting and banter, so he nudges Xabi in the ribs and nods at the home end where the spectre appeared.

"C'mon."

They traipse across the grass, Jamie very aware of his presence on a real football pitch for the first time in his life. It isn't Anfield, but it's something. He's got the camcorder on and he points it around.

"Spottee?"

Xabi snorts, which at least means he's back in full swing. " _That's_ your plan? Come here and shout a strange name?"

"Spottee?" Jamie calls, ignoring the idiot besides him. "Or any other spirit – if you're there, please give us a sign."

"I must say, filming a series where you go to supposedly haunted places and just ask them to talk to you does not sound very entertaining."

_Crack._

"What was that?"

Jamie spins, jabbing the camcorder behind them, but there's nothing there. Just the two of them and the empty pitch. Xabi's blinking at him. "Probably just the wind," he says.

"Fuck off, the wind doesn't crack."

"It's an old stadium. Lots of things crack."

"Exactly when I ask for a sign?"

"Coincidence," Xabi says succinctly.

Jamie switches on his flashlight and shines it across the grass, but nothing moves. Maybe it isn't anything, but there still seems something a little odd about the whole affair. Even exciting. It's not like Jamie very desperately wants to meet a ghost, but he'd shake hands with the Devil himself just to make a point.

Well. Maybe not _the_ Devils. Stevie would never shut up about it, for one. He'd have to exorcise his hand if Sir Alex ever shook it, for another.

If Spottee exists, he isn't making any other noise. Nothing so much as their slow breathing and the rustle of the grass as they walk.

"Don't make me take out my Ouija board," Jamie says.

"I refuse to believe this is happening," Xabi says.

 

 

 

The right thing to do would have been to go back round the advertising boarding to get to the stands, but Xabi, predictably, puts his hands on the boarding and clears it with a jump. "I've filmed that," Jamie says, shaking his head. "Now you're going to go down for sodding damage of public property."

"It's perfectly all right," Xabi shrugs all smug. "If you had tried, on the other hand…"

Unfinished sentences are really just disasters waiting to happen. Jamie's never one to back out of a challenge, but then again one really shouldn't try vaulting over advertising boards when one's extent of physical exercise is jumping out of the seat whenever Liverpool scores a goal.

He stumbles on his way over and lands embarrassingly on his arse, which probably results in a bruised tailbone and definitely results in a bruised ego. Xabi's laughter cracks down the length of the empty pitch.

"If that doesn't get the ghosts to come and see us I do not know what will."

"Shut the fuck up," Jamie growls, although he throws in an embarrassed grin, staggering to his feet and brushing off his jeans. "If any poltergeists would like to shove this man off the stairs, please don't stop on account of me."

"I think their non-existence is more a factor."

They climb up the stairs of the West Stand. This, Jamie tells the camera, is the main stand where most of the club is housed – dugouts, tunnels, everything. Behind the stand there's a wheel that represents the lifts which used to take the miners down into the mines. It's the spiritual heart of the Stadium of Light; surely there has to be something here.

 At the top Xabi folds his arms over his chest and looks around, expectantly.

"Well," he says, "I guess we are…stand-ing."

Scratch that. If the poltergeists would like to hurl him off the stairs he'd be equally happy.

"You don't even speak English. You're not allowed to make that bad a pun."

"Neither do you."

"Make bad puns?"

"Speak English."

It's one of those things he'll see the funny side of five years from now, only he doesn't have the luxury of waiting five years and instead has to contend with the increasing urge to throw a strop and lock Xabi in the stadium. No one deserves the horrendous fate of staying in Sunderland forever, but Xabi's coming real close.

"Did you say something?"

"Just thinking about murder." Jamie narrows his eyes. "Wait. Did you hear something?"

"…no."

"You fucking heard something."

"I did not."

"What was it?"

Xabi sighs. Even what should just be an expulsion of breath suddenly sounds like a dramatic reading of _Hamlet_. "It was just some sound. If all sounds were ghosts you would already be at home watching bake-off or whatever."

Could've been anything; could've been a ghost. Jamie looks around again, one last time, squinting through the rows of uninhabited plastic seats that line the stand. "If you're there, lads," he says. "Say my name."

"Carra," Xabi says. Jamie pays as little attention to him as Jose Mourinho pays to Luke Shaw.

But everything else is quiet. There's a faint breeze through the stadium that sweeps through his coat.

 

 

 

They go back down the stairs and take a turn through the players' tunnel. Nothing happens here, although Jamie didn't expect it to. It's harder to haunt a place that must see so much activity, and anyway no one's died in a players' tunnel before.

"How do you know?" Xabi asks. Jamie rolls his eyes.

"I run a football memorabilia store. I know everything there is to know."

"Who wore the number 3 shirt for Sunderland in '94/'95?"

"Michael Gray."

"That is… sad."

There's something in Xabi's voice that Jamie doesn't like. He looks over, lip curled, a knot in his chest. "We're both on reddit," he says, "so I guess that makes two of us."

Xabi smiles, brief.

 

 

 

Roker Park was almost a hundred years old before they swapped it to the Stadium of Light. Jamie imagines men in cloth caps, hunched over in bare-faced stands, looking over out at the game. The teeming mass of miners filing through the turnstiles. This is old country, in a way, the North; there are spirits wherever you go.

"They say they took bits of Roker Park and put them in the foundations of the Stadium of Light," Jamie says as they go down one of the winding corridors in the basement. It's even more eerie in the dim electric light and the far-off drip of water that Xabi immediately dismisses as a maintenance issue and not possibly the sound of blood dripping from the ceiling or anything of the sort. "And this stadium itself is built on a mining ground, so people probably died right here next to us. If we're to find any ghosts, we might find them here."

"Is Spottee here too?" Xabi asks, peering down the corridor. "Or does he only appear in Pointillism?"

The reference certainly confirms Xabi's existence as an evil spirit masquerading as a hipster curator of a pretentious private art gallery. Jamie grins broadly. "You're right, actually. Besides Stephen Elliot, a masseur called Bill and cleaners've also seen Spottee hanging around these here corridors. Apparently he was a reclusive Flemish bloke who also smuggled shit and there was supposed to be a tunnel from St Peter's Church to his cave around here somewhere."

"Are you sure this is not a Famous Five book?"

"Shut up, Alonso."

"I hope Spottee holds picnics with ginger beer."

"'Hello, I'm the terrifying ghost of a 19th century smuggler. Wanna grab a pint?"

They keep walking. Jamie's left his camcorder on, waiting to record any kind of EVP. It's supposed to make him famous, this. The ghost groundsman of Sunderland and other stories. No longer will he have to get headaches about trying to sell Sainsbury's England coins from 2002; he could afford the actual World Cup and be disappointed with England there instead.

And more than that. Prove that he's bloody right.

" _Hey –_ "

"Yeah?"

"What?"

"Didn't you – "

Xabi raises a perfectly pedicured – manicured – whatever – eyebrow at him. "No."

Jamie draws in a sharp breath. "Fuck," he says. "It's down here. Am I going crazy? It's down here."

"The only thing down here is the smell of relegation."

"I heard someone say 'hey'. Swear to god."

Xabi raps on the wall, politely.

"Demon, if you are there, would you please hurl me down the corridor?"

Jamie gapes at him.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Evidence," Xabi says, as cheerful as if he'd gotten to the bakery and there was only one chicken and mushroom pasty left. "Demon, do feel free to bash my brains out. Thank you."

"Yeah, well, you don't need to fucking _die_ – "

"Were you not thinking of murder just now?"

"Figuratively, you idiot, also will you stop saying 'demon'?"

"Mr. Demon, sir, my name is Xabi Alonso and this is Jamie Carragher. He goes by KingKenny7 on Reddit and if you checked you would probably be able to find his address. He doesn't believe you exist, so you should follow him home and haunt him to prove it."

"Jesus fucking – " Jamie descends into some kind of garbled noise in his throat that sounds like a cross between a cat giving birth and David Beckham's voice. "Will you shut the fuck up? I believe you exist. He doesn't believe you exist! Kill him instead!"

"I thought I did not need to fucking die?"

"You've got a bloody death wish, Alonso, I don't want to be part of this. I just want to prove that ghosts are real."

Xabi clicks his teeth together and gives Jamie a sidelong look. It's the same kind of face Stevie gives when he's disappointed with him, except Stevie's is less cocksure and more tired and doesn't make Jamie want to slap him as much. Not that he'd slap Xabi. Dangerous cheekbones, those.

"We all have to suffer for our art."

"What's your art, being a twat?"

"I am the best at being a twat," Xabi concedes. Jamie snorts.

"Eh. Mancs could probably give you a run for your money."

"I will outrun them."

"You? Running?"

"I could if the devil appeared, or something."

"If the devil appeared next to you you'd just brush it off as a stray leaf or some shit."

"You make me wonder what you think the devil looks like."

"Leaf me alone."

It's a shitty joke but the both of them burst into a fit of laughter anyway, Jamie just trying to work off his stomach that's knotted itself into a ball. If there's one thing he's glad for it's that he didn't have to do this shit alone. Even if his partner is the self-professed best twat in the business.

And he is getting rather warmed up to him, after all that. It's hard to dislike someone who will come all the way to Sunderland just to continue arguing with you. Almost like they care.

 

 

 

"Wanna try the spirit box?"

"I always want to try spirits."

"Not that sort." Jamie rolls his eyes for what's probably the tenth time that night. If they roll anymore he's vaguely afraid they'll bust right out of his skull and start singing _Satisfaction_. "An actual spirit box. It scans radio frequencies at a very high speed to produce short bursts of static. The chance of words coming out of that gibberish is pretty low, much less a full sentence, so ghost-hunters believe you can tell when the spirits are trying to communicate with you."

"So it is basically a broken radio."

"A _spirit box._ "

"A screaming, broken radio."

This is the kind of disrespect only Arsenal managers should have to face. Jamie ignores him like he ignores the existence of Chelsea and flicks the box on, filling the corridor they're currently in with sharp white noise. Xabi harrumphs in annoyance.

"This is like listening to Avenged Sevenfold."

"I didn't know you were aware of music after the 1800s."

"Neither is Spottee."

Jamie wheezes. "You're such an arse."

" _Gerald_ ," says the spirit box. Jamie blinks.

"Maybe that is Spottee's real name," Xabi suggests smarmily.

"Shut up, Alonso." Jamie holds the spirit box higher. "Is your name Gerald?"

No reply.

"Where are you from, Gerald?"

" _Public sod._ "

"Ah, yes," Xabi says. "Public Sod. A lovely holiday town off the coast of France."

Jamie shoots him a withering look. "Maybe he meant, like, Southampton or something, only he got cut off."

"Ah, yes. Sodhampton. A lovely place not to holiday in."

" _Hold that… phone._ "

Jamie looks down at the phone in his pocket. "Hold it? For what?"

"If he likes it he will put a ring on it," Xabi says.

Jamie might hold it just to throw it at Xabi.

"Gerald, mate, you've got to be more coherent. Don't get a word you're saying."

"That is because it is saying nothing. It's just radio signals, Carradonna."

"The fuck is Carradonna?"

"Like Prima Donna, because you are so dramatic."

"Oh, _I'm_ dramatic, Mr. Demon Kill Me?"

"Gerald, feel free to kill me."

" _Want flag?_ "

Xabi tilts his head. "Maybe Gerald was a telemarketer."

"Death of a salesman," Jamie says despite himself. Xabi wheezes.

"Sell me death, Gerald."

" _Bottle it._ "

Jamie wrinkles his nose. "Okay, that _kind_ of fits the context."

"Or he is a Spurs fan."

"Just because he's dead doesn't mean you have to be disrespectful, Alonso."

Maybe that scares Gerald away, because after that they don't get anything for a good few minutes, then a woman's voice saying _chicken_ , and then more blanks. With each static burst Jamie can feel Xabi's life energy being sapped and he almost wants to keep it on just to see that through, but switches it off eventually because he's a nice person. That and to be stuck with an actual dead body here would just genuinely be the shittest end to a story ever.

 

 

 

They come to the changing room. Now this is at least more familiar than any of the dingy corridors they've been skittering around; someone's left out the shirts for whatever broke tourists are coming the day after, and it's got a semblance of being used. It's probably the most haunted room out of everything there is here, but Jamie tries not to think about that.

"Apparently Sunderland's away dressing room is painted a nasty yellow to put off the opponents. Not that it's been particularly successful. The dressing room is the heart of any club, where the players sit before and after matches, and it is said that many old players have never really left."

"Did Niall Quinn never manage to escape?" Xabi asks, peering around. "Poor man."

"The saddest case is that of Jimmy Thorpe, who played for the club in the 1930s. During a game against Chelsea, without rules regarding head injuries in place, he was kicked repeatedly by three opponent players and regrettably passed soon after. They say he used to stay in this room at Roker Park, and then moved with the club. There've also been other sightings of ex-players, particularly those from the pre-war period."

"You don't think one of them has a lawnmower, do you?" Xabi says.

Jamie looks at his watch. It's almost three in the morning.

"Last stop, then you can leave. Okay?"

"End what has been the most formative experience of my life?" Xabi grins at him wryly. "What if we camp out here?"

"Wha – " Jamie looks around at the clean red floor, the kits in their wooden slotted benches. "Are you mad?"

"3:33 is the Devil's Hour, no?" Xabi scuffs at the ground with his foot before sitting clean down. He balances himself on his palms and kicks his legs out in front of him. "Maybe something will happen. We ask someone to switch on the flashlight. I've seen that before."

"I'm not staying for the fucking devil's hour."

"Don't you want to find out if you are right?"

It's a low blow, and of course Jamie wants to know. He'd just rather not actually have bloody pentacles carved into his skin or whatever ghosts at Sunderland did. Draw black cats?

Jesus, they were the black cats. Talk about fucking omens.

Xabi pats the floor beside him enticingly.

"I'll downvote you on reddit."

Jamie sits, even more unwilling than when he'd had to listen to Stevie's stupid pitch for some idiot alkaline water concept. If the numpty does end up going ahead with his daft idea he hopes to god that he doesn't stick with Angel bloody Revive, whatever that means.

Xabi beams at him.

"One hour," Jamie says. "Then I'm catching whatever bus there is out of here."

It's ridiculously dark. Jamie switches on the flashlight and figures they can ask the ghosts to switch it off instead. He's not going to sit in no light with a bloke who's just as capable of killing him as he is of driving open-top cars.

"Tell me more about your shop," Xabi says. "In Liverpool, I suppose?"

Jamie drums his fingers on the ground. "Yeah. Properly bought it around when I first started talking to you, actually."

Xabi laughs. "You mean arguing with."

"Ha. Yeah. I run it with my mate, Stevie. You'd like him, probably. He's dumb and easy to bully."

"I like people who argue," Xabi says, and if that isn't a fucker-upper if there ever was one.

Jamie hopes Spottee's going to come around soon and switch the bloody flashlight off, because he can't look at Xabi and still take him seriously. "What d'you do, then?" he asks, squinting angrily at the walls. "Lounge on the beach with a wine glass in your hand all day?"

"Administration." Xabi shrugs. "I work for the Royal Mail in Slough."

It's so far off from what Jamie had expected that he has to do a double take. "Huh. I'd have expected something less – "

"Sad?" Xabi catches his look and smiles. "As you said. We are both on Reddit."

Jamie scratches at his knee, not sure what else to say. "You mentioned your dad played?"

"Yes. Periko Alonso – maybe you have heard of him, since you know everything. Real Sociedad."

As a matter of fact Jamie does know everything, and he knows that he has a couple of Mundial 1982 stickers with _99 – Alonso_ on them. Must be pretty cool to grow up with a semi-famous dad, he thinks, until he remembers how Xabi breathes football online, how ending up dealing with irate snail mail customers must not have been something he or his father had seen coming.

He looks at his watch again. 3:29.

"Couple minutes left," he says.

This was a stupid idea. He's got better things to do than try to prove himself to a right idiot by descending into the ninth circle of hell. He could be home watching his 07/08 season review DVD right about now.

"If we don't die," Xabi says, "will you finally admit I'm right?"

"Only for this stadium."

"Ghosts are not real, Carradonna."

"There're loads of other places that need looking at."

"You are not seriously going to keep this going."

"I am," Jamie says, obstinate.

"Carra, there are no ghosts."

"You don't know that."

"I do know it is 3:33am and that Spottee has not tried to trim and paint us in preparation for the new season."

Jamie checks his watch and scrunches his face up. "Spottee," he says. "Or anyone, really. It's devil's hour. Turn this bloody flashlight off."

"If you are real, kick me in the face."

"What the fuck – "

"My friend Jamie Carragher and I don't believe in you."

"Stop dragging me into your bullshit – "

"Jamie Carragher. Two Rs. Follow us home and pelt us with those truly demonic Cadburys with air bubbles."

"Will you shut – "

The light goes off.

 

 

 

There's two seconds of sheer blind panic; he hears someone yelling and it takes a while to register that it's _him_ who's yelling, and Xabi's shouting _turn it back on_ and he's shouting _god fucking no_ and his hands are going for the holy water – is it even holy water, he just went to the toilet in a church – uncorked, Xabi sputtering in indignation, Jamie reaching for the flashlight and finding something else warm instead, more yelling, Lord if Spottee has physically manifested he's going to murder a bastard –

"Carra! It's me. _Dios._ It's me."

  The light flicks back on. Dimly in the battery-powered gleam Jamie registers that he's holding Xabi's hand instead.

"Oh. Oh, sorry – "

"You don't have to let go," Xabi says. His voice is awfully measured. Jamie doesn't know how the fuck he's doing this.

"The light just – "

"Battery. Look, it's flickering again."

It is, and Jamie knows that maybe there's a logical explanation to all of this, but it's still messed up as fuck. And it's still creepy as fuck. Jamie comes very quickly to the conclusion that, like most ghost hunters, he's happy to live on half-truths and interpreted evidence so long as it means not being possessed by a devil flashlight.

"Can we please get the fuck out of here," he says as calmly as he can, which under the circumstances is not very.

"Come on." Xabi grabs the flashlight as Jamie grabs the duffle bag and then they're walking straight out of the room. Past the corridors and the pitch and the turnstiles and in five minutes flat they're outside, the brightly illuminated Sunderland crest leering at them.

"It was just the battery, Carra," Xabi says. "Are you all right?"

Jamie looks down. Somehow they've gone back to holding hands.  

"It was a ghost," he says, brow furrowed.

Xabi starts to laugh.

"Spottee, the smuggler who cuts grass and touches people's flashlights."

Cripes. All of this is the stupidest shit Jamie's ever heard. He snickers, fuelled by the mild hysteria he's experiencing at the heartbeat in his chest.

"Is your small portable appliance safe? Think again."

"Sunderland fans, watch out. You might have a decent-looking lawn tomorrow morning."

"Just a namecard there with 'Gerald' from Public Sod, Essex."

They laugh, they keep laughing, until Xabi squeezes Jamie's hand and Jamie thinks for a brief, hot second about kissing Xabi. Tell him it was a ghost. Something.

He doesn't do it, in the end. Looks over and says, "Sorry for dragging you all the way here."

"Hey." Xabi smiles. "It was fun, no? And I was right, so I don't mind."

"Fuck off back to Slough," Jamie grins back. "Flashlight Bob was a ghost and no mistake. I'll find more, too. This isn't even an old stadium."

"Don't let him insult you like this, Spottee."

"You are such a piece of work," Jamie says. "I hope I never have to see you again."

He doesn't mean it, of course, but it's four in the morning in Sunderland, and there seems to be nothing else to say.

 

 

 

_MickeyO: OMG THE FLASHLIGHT_

_XA_14: Coincidence_

_KingKenny7: Bugger that, it was a ghost!!!_

_XA_14: Did you check your batteries?_

_KingKenny7: Ok they died but at the point we asked them to???_

_MickeyO: You were right!!_

_XA_14: There is literally no other evidence Mickey_

_MaccaCanMaccaCan: Looks kinda legit to me_

_KingKenny7: Thanks Macca_

_Fowl_Play: Great vid! Are you going to do other stadiums?_

_KingKenny7: Dunno…maybe?_

_XA_14: More pointless screaming in the dark? An entertaining movie_

_Fowl_Play: Can't be worse than PacRim2, I mean_

Jamie's just finished packing his ghoul bag when the shop bell clinks. "I'll get it," Stevie yells from outside, the excitement in his voice palpable. He's been itching for the first delivery of his Angel Revive nonsense for the past week; Jamie's paid off the mailman to wait till he can replace everything with ordinary water bottles.

Not that he's got much of a leg to stand on. "I won't take any shit from someone who has a ghoul bag," Stevie had declared the other day, which, to be fair, held water.

He zips up the bag and makes his way out of the storeroom, only to stop dead in his tracks. Stevie's leaning against the door frame chatting to a tall, handsome man whose basic understanding of clothes immediately means he's not from around here.

"Alonso," Jamie says.  

Stevie beats a tactful retreat, only to knock over a potted plant, two scarf stands, and a life-sized cardboard cutout of Ian Rush along the way.

"Carradonna," Xabi says, grinning. "You were not thinking of exploring Anfield without me, were you?"

Jamie blinks. No one but Stevie knew that he'd finally gotten the permit to have a look round Liverpool's stadium after hours. "How'd you find out?"

"I called the shop and Steven told me. He needed my help with some kind of delivery as well, so that worked out."

Well. Fuck. Now he's got an annoying Spaniard _and_ alkaline water.

"It'll be just as bad as the previous one," Jamie warns, walking over to Xabi and dropping his ghoul bag on the floor, arms folded. "We're just going to look for things you don't believe in."

Xabi smirks at him. "I am always here for proving you wrong. You should know that."

Jamie picks up his bag and unzips one of the front pockets. In it are two round stickers from 1982, made by Mundial. He fishes them out and holds them out to Xabi in the flat of his palm.

"I knew," he says, grins wide. "I even bought new batteries."

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Concept based on Buzzfeed Unsolved, a wonderful, stupid, funny show that's currently in [Season 4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CupbRr2m_sM&list=PLVAvUrL_VQiMK9tLmc1wTzPqamT6MFUwY) of Supernatural!  
> \- The wheeze, spirit box, and flashlight are all taken from there.
> 
> [Carra really does have a weirdly encyclopedic knowledge of all football](https://youtu.be/-OROqJk_IkM?t=11m5s)
> 
> The Sunderland ghost (Spottee is real!!!!): [X](https://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/spooky-goings-on-at-academy-of-light-1-1048672) [X](http://footballburp.com/stories/video-sunderland-ghost-spotted-on-sky-sports-coverage-of-everton-defeat/)  
> Information on Roker Park: [X](https://www.safc.com/history/stadiums/roker-park) [X](http://www.stadiumguide.com/rokerpark/) [X](https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/sunderlands-historic-roker-park-home-13010159) [X](https://www.footballgroundmap.com/ground/roker-park/sunderland) [X](http://www.footballgroundguide.com/old-grounds-and-stands/roker-park-sunderland/index.html)  
> Information on Stadium of Light: [X](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadium_of_Light) [X](https://www.safc.com/club/stadium-of-light) [X](http://www.footballgroundguide.com/leagues/england/championship/stadium-of-light-sunderland.html) [X](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-united/12043399/Revealed-footballs-most-devious-dressing-room-tactics.html) [X](http://www.stadiumguide.com/stadiumoflight/) [X](https://footballtripper.com/stadium-of-light-sunderland-afc/) [X]() [X](https://www.safc.com/news/club-news/2017/july/the-story-behind-the-sol)  
> Incidentally I googled 'stadium of light' and [this nightmare](http://theballcock.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/nolan-signal-1024x588.jpg) came up, ghosts are real
> 
> [That 17th century balcony railing](http://www.stephen-f.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/1388762850_extras_albumes_0.jpg)  
> [Michael Gray](http://www.worldfootball.net/teams/sunderland-afc/1995/2/)  
> [Jimmy Thorpe](https://rokerreport.sbnation.com/2017/10/6/16427558/the-tragic-story-of-sunderlands-jimmy-thorpe-who-died-playing-for-the-club-he-loved) is, sadly, a true story  
> Slough is a sly winkwonk to the location of The Office, the most deadend job ever  
> [Mundial stickers](https://www.ebay.com/itm/Portugese-issue-World-Cup-Spain-1982-Sticker-Miguel-Periko-Alonso-Barcelona/321853893972?hash=item4aeffcad54:g:l9kAAOSw~gRV6WsW)
> 
>  
> 
> [ANGEL REVIVE](http://www.angelrevive.com/steven-gerrard/)
> 
>  
> 
> Reddit handles:  
> MaccaCanMaccaCan: Steve McManaman, also a reference to that good old [Anfield Rap](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kcy3gwwxat4)  
> KingKenny7: Carra but a reference to ol' Dalglish  
> Fowl_Play: Wobbie  
> MickeyO: U ALL KNOW THIS
> 
> I've not actually seen pac rim 2 i just heard it was bad and i couldnt think of another movie 
> 
> Title from Don't Ask me Why, coincidentally the only Billy J song to pop up when u google Billy Joel ghosts 
> 
> Thanks for reading. <3


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